Now I Know Why
by Belamancer
Summary: Six thousand miles is a long long way from home. On hold untill after my exams.
1. Closing Time

Okay, I know it's probably been done before, I guess I'll just have to hope that it's original. This story has absolutely nothing to do with any other stuff that I've written/will write, it just kinda happened. Blame it on the geese.

*I know everyone else uses plot bunnies cos they multiply like mad, but I use geese, mainly because the idea of being savagely attacked by a flock of bunnies doesn't quite work. I guess my plots are a little too aggressive. *

Ahem. Anyway, I own nothing, nobody and, uhm, nothing. Except the plot of course. And the ideas, most of them. And Arrow (Natalie). But apart from those, nothing at all.

Now then. 

Are you sitting comfortably? 

Then I'll begin.

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Closing Time

In a room a girl is sat on her bed, crying. From behind her door, which is closed and locked, the sound of adult voices shouting can be heard. It should be noted at this point that the door is not locked on the inside. 

The room is a mess, the usual state for bedrooms belonging to typical teenage girls. Unlike most girls' bedrooms however there are no posters on the walls, no favourite pop stars, footballers, cute animal pictures, nothing like that. Instead, one entire wall is devoted to cuttings from newspapers and magazines, some yellowy brown with age, others still fresh and white. 

Looking closer we can read some of the headlines. "Mutated DNA- IS There a Cure?", "Human Evolution-The Next Generation", "My Son Walks Through Walls", all the articles are along the same theme. Some of the older cuttings are from rather dubious sources, such as The Sun, The Star and The Chronicle. 

In a normal person something like this might indicate an unhealthy obsession, but the girl currently sat sobbing on her bed is clearly not a normal person. 

She is sort of attractive, maybe, in general shape at least and apart from the spots. Oh, and the, uh, colouring. She has green, greasy looking skin, a sort of light emeraldy green, and long thick dark mossy green greasy looking hair. Her eyes are the most striking feature about her, however. They are amber/gold and speckled with black. They are also currently ringed with red where she's been crying. 

The girl looks up as the voices downstairs stop. There is a pause, and then the door to her room is opened. A man walks in and sits down uninvited on her bed. In the dim light that filters in through the heavily netted curtains it is just about possible to see that he looks rather worried. In the doorway stands a woman who looks as if she has also been crying. 

The girl deliberately doesn't look at the man as he begins to talk to her, explaining things quietly and with great care. Telling her how the rest of the family have been through a lot of stress lately, how although of course he didn't believe what the neighbours had said he still didn't think that she had acted appropriately. How she was seventeen, a young, er, woman. The benefits of having your own space, your own job, how he himself left home when he was only sixteen, how she doesn't have to leave if she doesn't want to, and more, a lot more. 

Eventually he stops and looks at her expectantly. She nods, finally. Of course, he says, you'll need money, a place to stay, and of course a job, not exactly sure how much but surely- she cuts him off short. Twelve hundred she says. What? Twelve Hundred. Clearly bemused he asks her why. Because, she says in a defiantly irritated tone, it's how much I need. She waves a hand vaguely at the wall of newspaper cuttings behind her as a kind of explanation. 

The man shakes his head wearily, the woman sighs. Well, so long as you don't mind carrying that much cash around with you. When would you be ready to leave? The girl glares angrily at the woman stood in the doorway and doesn't answer. She gets up from the bed and pulls from underneath the bed a smallish rucksack, stuffed almost to bursting. From a small pocket at the front she removes two rather thick envelopes that she hands to the man still sat on the bed. Give this one, she says, to Jason, and this one is for Matt. My stuffs ready packed, all I need is the cash and I'm ready to go. The woman nods slowly. Make sure you take this, the woman says suddenly, and hands the girl a mobile phone with a charger. Call us if you have any problems, she says. 

You'd better go soon, the man says, looking worried again. The boys'll be back soon. The girl nods again, makes her way downstairs, picks up the cash and an extra jumper that her mother insists upon, waves goodbye. 

Leaves.

All over the country, all over the world the same and similar scenes are being acted out as parents realise that they really aren't up to the task of dealing with adolescent mutants. This particular scene occurs deep within the "no-go" area of Whalley Range, Manchester, England, but it is important to remember that it could have happened anywhere, for any number of similar reasons. And it does. 

**********

Closing time, 

you don't have to go home,

But you can't

stay

here.

^Closing Time, Semisonic.

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Okay then, there ya go. The first chapter, all nonsensical and stuff. Please, if you have read this and formed any opinion at all about it, even if you just thought it was utter crap and should be burnt, for _sake tell me! I don't care what you say, I just want some feedback. Pretty please?

Any suggestions, corrections or objections will be duly noted, listened to and possibly acted on.

P.S. Don't worry, the next chapter will be longer.


	2. By Myself

The song for this chapter is 

BUY MYSELF - Linkin Park, Remix by Marilyn Manson, from the album Re-Animation

Can I help it if I can't work without a soundtrack?

Oh yeah, that's where all the strange misplaced quotes are from too. If I've got anything wrong, tell me.

What Do I Do?

Only three weeks living on the streets in and around Manchester has reduced the girl Natalie to bare essentials. Gathering information from dubious tabloid newspapers gives her a purpose in her wanderings, but still she hasn't found a job, a source of income, or any clues. That is part of the problem, of course, because she doesn't know what she is looking for. 

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What do I do,

To ignore them behind me,

Do I follow my instincts blindly?

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Underneath a motorway bridge, a small pile of blankets and sleeping bags stirs. Someone has taken care with this little dry corner of the bridge's supports. There are rough chipboard "walls" over the sides that aren't made out of concrete. Beside the little shelter is a small, carefully hidden campfire, or rather the remains of the same. No belongings are visible from inside or outside the shelter, but by looking up and craning the neck it is possible to catch a glimpse of something, high above in the complicated support structure, which looks out of place. It is a small rucksack, carefully tied out of reach of any pickpockets or casual thieves. In fact, it is out of reach to everyone who doesn't have a very long ladder and an hour or two to spare. 

Almost everyone. 

Emerging from the almost cosy shell of boarding, carrying the bundle which forms her usual sleeping place, a thin figure scruffily clad in black; black jeans, black boots, black hoodie, slips back the hood which covers her face and looks about in the early morning half-light. It is, of course, the girl Natalie, but her time away from home has changed her. She's not just thinner, everything about her manner, her attitude has changed. Her face, muddied and grubby from the lack of certain amenities, has a curiously hunted look as she stares about. 

After a while she seems to find what she is looking for. With a second careful glance around, she leaps up and begins to climb to retrieve her belongings. When she climbs she doesn't hang on with fingertips in crevices like rock climbers or mountaineers. Instead, she simply seems to crawl directly up the wall to where the sack is partly hidden. 

She quickly snatches the sack and drops again to the floor, landing on her feet, not so much cat-like as frog-like as her knees bend with the impact and she supports herself on her hands.

With quick practised motions she folds the blankets and then, from the small pocket at the front, draws a small and battered looking book which she opens with an almost reverential air. Inside it a small piece of yellowing paper is scrutinised closely before being carefully refolded and replaced. It's a map, or rather, part of a map, part of a street map of a city, with a route carefully outlined in red. 

She stands up. This is it, this is the day.

She pulls her hood back up to cover her face and hair, and puts a pair of dark sunglasses on to hide her unnatural golden eyes. 

And sets off, rucksack on her back, thumb at the ready, for the main road and, hopefully, a lift.

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Do I hide my pride,

From these bad dreams 

and give in to sad thoughts that are maddening?

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As she walks she thinks. How did I ever get into this state? But she knows the answer, however much she would like to pretend ignorance. Three and a half weeks ago, she had everything worked out. 

Everything would be alright, or rather, it wouldn't, but it wouldn't matter. No-one would have to deal with anything. 

She wouldn't have to deal with anything.

Of course, she'd lost count of the number of times she had made this decision before. Of course, it would be just like the other times. She wouldn't do anything about it. She never did. And, her parents reasoned, there was no reason to pay attention to it just because she was making a scene. She'd just run off, sleep outside in the den she'd made under the tree and wake up with a bad hangover. Just like usual. 

But this time, it wasn't usual. 

From her parents point of view it seemed to follow the same pattern as always; Natalie, in tears over something someone she knew had said or done, woke up the next day calm and contrite and with abad headache. However, there was a subtle yet significant difference which should have set alarm bells ringing for her mother and father. 

She didn't wake up with a hangover in the morning. She was as sober, calm and collected as when she went to bed.

Later it would haunt her family, that they had grown so used to her regular threats that they hadn't taken her seriously the one time that she meant it. But at the time, everything was normal. 

Natalie remained calm throughout the day. When asked about what happened the night before, she smiled lightly then changed the subject. 

------------------------------------------------------

-Because I cant hold on when I'm stretched so thin,

I make the right moves but I'm lost within,

I put on my daily facade but then,

I just end up getting hurt again.

By myself.

----------------------------------------------------------

She woke up the next morning, with a headache of course, in ST Mary's Infirmery, Manchester. She had required a complete blood transfusion as well as a ridiculous sounding number of stitches.

She snaps abruptly out of her reverie as a car pulls up beside her and the driver offers her a lift. She hoists her rucksack and her hood slips back a little, revealing seveal strands of noticably green hair, and the driver abruptly mutters some excuse before accelerating away from her. As she continues her stroll along the now typically wet and mudy grassy verge her fingers, eemingly of thir own accord, trace lines along her wrists, absently mindedly following the scars which marked her lifes biggest mistake.

_________________________

okay, short I know, but what do you expect, I'm on holiday in Scotlnd, forgoodness sake.Mad.

Anyway, normal (?) service wil be resumed shortly. Perhaps.

oh yeah, and in answer to my ONLY review so far (hint hint), 

CosmicGirl22- Thank you very very much for reviewing. And yes, eventually it wil be sort of a Toad romance, evenually and ina way. It seems unfair that very few people actually write about the poor guy.

Oh yeah, just in case anyone is ven interested,there is a reason why everything so far has happened in and around Manchester. 

1-I know enough about the area to make it convincing, and

2-well, here's a sort of scientific explaination. I figured that, seeing as how Britain as a whole and Lancashire and Yorkshire in particular and wet old and mudy most of the year around, and seeing as how the whole mutation thing is spposed to be due to evolution it would make sense for Britain to have a higher than usual concentration of amphibious mutants. More suitable to the environment, kind of thing.

Oh wel, see ya.

BellaShamharoth


	3. Waltzing Along

Well, here you go. 

Music for this chapter conveniently provided by James, the song is "Waltzing Along".

Waltzing Along, chapter 3

It's just an ordinary pub. It has bar stools, a dirty old red carpet on the floor, a not particularly unusual suspicious smell that is the mixture of stale beer and more unhygienic substances. It has a few resident drunks, propped against the bar, a couple in the corner who appear to be debating leaving and going out to find a hotel, a few more underage drinkers lurking in the darkest part of the room, trying not to be noticed. A fairly average looking generic bartender is standing at the bar, polishing glasses with a greasy cloth. 

The door opens and a young woman stumbles in, bringing with her several gallons worth of driving rain and a whole load of wind to boot. A few people look up but she is ignored for the most part as she walks in and sits down at the bar. 

She is skinny, her clothes soaking wet and muddy, her face mostly covered by a hood that looks like it offers very little protection against the elements.

The bartender wordlessly looks her up and down and smiles thinly. "Nasty weather we've bin 'avin', in't it? What'll it be?" 

She shrugs. She's not looking for a drink, she says. Is there someone here called-she checks a small piece of soggy paper from her pocket- Greggy Philips? 

The bartender looks at her for a few moments, then nods slowly. "'Round the back." he gestures towards a small door which leads into the kitchens behind the bar. Nat hesitates slightly before shrugging and stepping through. The kitchen is admirably clean, all the surfaces stainless steel and grease free. She looks around. To her left a small winding staircase leads up, next to the stairs is a small sign. Nat reads it, smiles vaguely, and quickly climbs the stairs. 

A door at the top, and it's locked. Nat knocks on it a few times and it opens to reveal a tall string bean of a lad. He's wearing a t-shirt which reads "Weird Rules" and a baggy pair jeans. 

"Hello Natalie." He says, as he stands aside to let her through. 

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__

Help comes when you need it most,

*********************************************

Nat sits in the offered chair and looks from the lad to the computer screen, as it flickers through illegally accessed government records. She's staring because, although the computer is flicking through records and codes at breakneck speed, the lad hasn't touched it. She waits for him to say something. 

She isn't disappointed. 

"Oh no. I'm so sorry." To his credit, he does sound genuinely sorry for whatever it is. Nat frowns at him, she want's to know what it is. "I found your match, it was easy once I finished the new algorithms for the -anyway. I found your match. It's quite a way aways from here. In America, to be exact. Northwest. A prison...." Nat listens with a sort of bewildered expression. She can't believe it. Finally she found a match, someone else who's like her, and they have to be in godamned America. Sixty thousand pissing miles of sea! The first, and so far only country to introduce mandatory registration of mutants and the electronic tagging of visiting mutants from other countries. And her match is in a prison, no less! 

"Relax." the lad tells her. Relax? RELAX?!

********************************************

__

Mood swings, 

not sure I can cope

********************************************

She sits and stares gobsmacked for a little while before coming to a decision. It is, in a way, a decision which she already made when she came here, a decision she made even before she left home so many weeks ago. A discussion which steered her life from that point, gave her focus and a purpose so that even when she was wandering through the suburbs she still knew, in a way, where she was going. Occasionally she nods to the guy in the chair as he outlines a plan, arranges tickets, a temporary passport which she will need to walk around in the States without getting shot. A superstitious person would call it fate or possibly destiny, in a dramatic tone of voice, but to her it seems somehow more than that, as if she were being drawn towards some invisible goal on the horizon. 

******************************************

__

May your mind be wide open,

May your heart be strong,

May your mind set you free

May your heart lead you on.

******************************************

Six thousand miles away a man awakes and stares out into the black space beyond the bars which keep him away from the general population and their delicate sensibilities. It would be, he reflect bitterly, a fair trade, after all he doesn't much like people in general, if it weren't for the other problems with being imprisoned. 

******************************************

__

All roads lead onto Death Row,

******************************************

The food is bad, the company worse, and then there's the little matter of having a life expectancy of less than six months. That's the time it takes for them to get all the paperwork sorted out for his execution. 

The man sighs and stretches out on the hard metal bench. Scrubby dark green hair caps a lighter muddy green face, set off by deep brown/black eyes, and his unusually long legs push slightly against the opposite wall of the cell as he stretches. It's not difficult to see why he doesn't like being out in public much, the tendency of people to stop and stare must become annoying and embarrassing nafter a while. 

He frowns as he remembers the reason why he awoke. A strange dream, wasn't it? About a girl, and - it was blurry in his mind, as such things often are, but he struggled to hold on to the details. A girl, and a pub, and a lot of rain. He sniggers slightly to himself. He heh. He could almost be back home, what with the rain and everything. 

A second thought strikes him, and he leans over to try and find a window, a skylight or something. No, not a sausage. Not surprising really, he's made the same search every day for the past three months, ever since he was caught. Certain bad experiences with weather in general and lightening in particular had left him with a certain nervous approach to weather. A bit like being in the room with a wasp; as long as he knows where it is and what it's doing he's if a little nervous. 

A shrug. It feels early to him, although there are no clocks or watches, so he settles down to sleep again. Maybe he thinks, maybe I can catch that dream again. 

*****************************************

__

Who knows what's after.

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Well, of course I do, I was just wondering if anyone else does. Heheh. Anyway, there you are, an entire chapter and thank you very much for reviewing.

Oh, uhm, sorry about that Noah, I kind of updated without reading reviews first. Oops.

Sorry again, but thank you sooo much for reviewing and reading and stuff. Yay! 

P.S. 

Wench? WENCH?! I'll give you wench you acid crazed mongoose!

Ahem. I think I'll just be going now...


	4. Data or no disc loaded

Sweating nervously, eyes darting from side to side in an apparently subconscious movement, looking for a route of escape, a girl is stood in line. The queue weaves around for what seems like miles until coming to a stop at a rather heavily manned security checkout desk. The girl is not the only nervous looking person there, many people dislike flying, but she is the only person there who's wearing a huge hoodie which hides her face and sunglasses. People are looking at her suspiciously, and as she gets closer and closer to the check-out desk she can't help but notice a certain increase in activity down there. 

Oh hell. Someone is walking towards her. Someone with a dumb uniform and a police dog and a -oh** shit **- very large looking gun. Nat tries ell herself to relax, that it isn't exactly different, that everyone in the whole damned country carries guns anyway, that she may as well get used to it, any one of a hundred different reasons why she shouldn't be especially alarmed, but it just isn't working. 

The security guard gestures for her to get out of the line, and she does so, sighing as she sees the gap she leaves behind close. The guard tells her to follow her and she slouches along behind him, trying to look as normal as possibly, no mean feat for someone whose legs make up just under two thirds of her body height. He pulls her into a small brightly-lit room and sits her down in front of a desk. He however, doesn't sit. Instead he strides about the room as he talks, presumably in an attempt to be intimidating. It doesn't work; Natalie just looks straight ahead as she answers endless meaningless questions. 

Yes, she is a mutant. No, she's never been a member of any terrorist organisations. No, neither has any of her family. Yes, she does have a valid passport. No, her parents don't know she's here. No, she's from Manchester. Absolutely, she's aware of the severity of the situation. Yes, she understands the many and varied non-reasons why the American government feels the need to encourage mutant registration. Yes, she knows damn well that as a foreigner and a British citizen she doesn't need to be registered. No, she doesn't want to volunteer. No, really she doesn't. 

Finally he begins to get the idea, and opens the door to let her out. As a final insult he demands that she removes her hood and glasses "In case of accidents". Nat walks away fuming, fortunately able to now bypass the huge queue. 

She is totally, completely and utterly unprepared for the reaction she gets as she walks out of the building. 

Back home, in Manchester, people would look, the occasional small child would stare or point, very occasionally someone would make a comment, but most of it was fairly gentle. 

But as she steps out past the queue people grow silent to watch her. The noise starts up again, murmurs of "mutant" and "freak" and, for some reason, "terrorist" grow to very audible whispers as she walks to the door, and she can feel the hundreds of eyes on her. 

They itch.

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In his cell, several hundred miles away from where the girl Nat stands now, a man reads a note written on yellowed newspaper, smiles to himself and turns on his bunk to go back to sleep, his only escape from the six-by-six room he inhabits. That is, untill tonight...

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Sorry about the length, blame it on the Prozac-happy polecats.


End file.
